Law firms urge Palo Alto council to reject proposal to turn Buena Vista Mobile Home Park into luxury apartments

By Jason Green

Daily News Staff Writer

Posted:
03/09/2013 07:22:20 PM PST

Updated:
03/09/2013 07:22:29 PM PST

Two law firms urged the Palo Alto City Council this week to reject a proposal to replace Buena Vista Mobile Home Park with luxury apartments and warned that it could wind up in court if it doesn't.

The Law Foundation of Silicon Valley and the Western Center on Law and Poverty have joined forces to represent the more than 400 mostly low-income residents of the mobile home park who would be displaced.

"We hope that the city of Palo Alto will do the right thing and protect the rights of its residents at Buena Vista," said Nadia Aziz, a staff attorney with the Law Foundation's Fair Housing Law Project.

"Closing the park is going to wreak havoc on a very close-knit and long-established neighborhood, and take them far away from a wonderful community, high quality health care and excellent schools."

The owner of Buena Vista, Toufic Jisser, filed an application in November to close the mobile home park. He has agreed to sell the roughly 4.5-acre property to Bay Area real estate developer Prometheus, which is proposing to raze the existing 117 units and build 180 luxury apartments.

In a nine-page letter sent to the city council Wednesday, the two law firms said Palo Alto has an obligation to preserve its affordable housing and pointed out that its comprehensive plan specifically recognizes Buena Vista as a vital source of low- to moderate-income housing.

The city council passed an ordinance in 2000 to preserve the mobile home park, which is the last of its kind in Palo Alto.

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The city also risks running afoul of state and federal fair housing laws if it allows the closure to go through -- Latinos, disabled and older residents, and families with children would be disproportionately affected, according to the law firms.

"The closure of Buena Vista Mobile Home Park would certainly have a discriminatory effect on Latinos in Palo Alto and would likely also have a discriminatory effect on people with disabilities and families with children," the letter said.

"As such, Palo Alto's approval of that closure could give rise to a claim of disparate impact discrimination."

Melodie Cheney is among the majority of mobile home park residents who would not be able to live elsewhere in Palo Alto without significant housing subsidies or other assistance.

"With high housing costs in this economy, living in Buena Vista means that I have a place where I can own a home, that I can call mine, the affordability to make the mortgage and space rental payments, and still pay my other bills," Cheney said. "I know that I wouldn't be able to do that anywhere else nearby."

If the city council ends up approving the application, it must ensure that the displaced residents receive "comparable" housing as per the California Relocation Assistance Act and the city's mobile home park conversion ordinance, according to the law firms. That means moving owners at Buena Vista into townhouses or condominiums and renters into apartments in Palo Alto, the letter said.

But James Zahradka, a supervising attorney with the Law Foundation, said preservation of Buena Vista remains the primary goal.

"If Buena Vista is bulldozed, those units are not coming back and Palo Alto is going to continue to become more and more a community of very wealthy people," he said. "It's going to become a less diverse community."

Zahradka said the letter is the first formal communication that the law firms have had with the city.

"We hope this is a start of a productive conversation with the city," he said, "but we are prepared to take legal action if necessary and we think the law is on our side."

City Attorney Molly Stump did not immediately return a phone call and email seeking comment on the letter Friday.